Is Same-Sex Attraction a Sin?

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Across the evangelical spectrum, including otherwise generally orthodox voices, there is much confusion today over whether or not experiencing same -sex attraction is a sin.

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In general, there exists an uneasy default position that goes something like this. Experiencing same -sex orientation or attraction is not sinful in itself, but acting on such impulses is.

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I do not believe attraction is a sin, but I do believe that some actions are sin.

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Homosexuality is, it's a sin. Now if you have, now maybe somebody even in this room, you may have same -sex attractions.

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I don't know. I would say that's not a sin. Homosexual behavior is a sin, not homosexual feelings.

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We all have attractions we ought not act on, right? There's a difference between attractions and actions.

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Some thinkers articulate this general framework differently by reducing same -sex attraction to a non -sinful temptation while conceding that sexual lust or desire for those of the same sex is sinful.

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To just be that way, to feel this way, I don't think is any more sin than my feeling heterosexual.

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It's unnatural, it's broken, but now I have the choice with my heterosexuality to make it sin or to make it holy.

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A person who wrestles with homosexual temptations, desires, has the same choice.

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The temptation itself is not a sin. If we indulge the feeling even only within the privacy of our own minds, that is a sin.

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Other people lining up more that know the tendency itself or the temptation itself is not sinful, it's only sinful if you act on it.

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I think we're giving this time. In either case, a category for experiencing some kind of non -sinful homosexual inclination, however small, is justified.

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The impression is given that sexual desires, in general, are amoral. Some defend this view by grounding the sin of homosexuality in man's choice.

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They imply that unwanted homosexual desires are not sinful until someone entertains them.

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However, the Apostle Paul in Romans 7, under the authority of the Holy Spirit, claimed that he did not want his own sinful practices.

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Yet, they were still sinful because they missed the mark of God's holy standard.

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To understand the error baked into this generally accepted teaching on same -sex attraction, one must first understand what

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Scripture teaches on sinful passion, desire, and temptation. According to the theological wordbook of the

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New Testament, the Greek term pathos refers to things like passion and impulse.

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In all three New Testament uses of the term in Colossians 3 .5, 1

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Thessalonians 4 .5, and Romans 1 .26, it refers to sexual passion.

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Greek scholar Alexander Stauder describes it as a state or condition of lust.

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We get English words like empathy and pathology from this term. It is perhaps the closest approximate language we have approaching what modern people reference when they describe orientation, i .e.,

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pathologically experiencing a pattern of attraction. The Greek word epithymia simply refers to a desire, lust, or craving.

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Epithymia is used in both positive ways and negative ways throughout the New Testament.

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Paul said his desire, in Philippians 1, was to be with Christ. Yet, in Ephesians 2, the same word is used to refer to sinful desires that invite

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God's wrath. Both sinful pathos and epithymia are condemned in Romans 1 and Colossians 3 .5.

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Pirasmos is the word most commonly used to refer to temptation in the New Testament. When the devil tempted

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Christ in Matthew 4, or when the author of Hebrews states Christians do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are yet without sin, this term constitutes the experience of a sinless person.

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Therefore, experiencing temptation in itself does not necessarily indicate the internal presence of sin.

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However, James 1 .13 -15 says, Let no one say when he is tempted,

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I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself does not tempt anyone.

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But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.

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According to this passage, the source of temptation to evil is a lust present in fallen creatures, but not in God.

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We can conclude that temptation is not the source of sin, but it does expose desires that could be.

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At this point, it is important to make a distinction. Theologians make between inner and outer temptation.

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When Satan tempted Jesus, the appeal was to achieve godly ends in ungodly ways.

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Jesus only had godly desire, so Satan could not appeal to evil desires resulting from a sin nature or unnatural desires downstream from previous sinful experience.

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We could say the same about Adam and Eve before the fall. Augustine makes this distinction in the

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Confessions, when he tells the story of lusting to thief compelled by no hunger nor poverty, but through a closedness of well -doing, and a pamperedness of iniquity.

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Proverbs teaches that men do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy himself when he is hungry.

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In contrast, Augustine stole simply to enjoy the theft and sin itself.

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Both scenarios illustrate sinful behavior, but of the underlying desires, only one is sinful.

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To desire food is a natural good, according to Jesus. Even evil fathers naturally give their son a fish instead of a snake when their son is hungry.

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Accomplishing good ends through evil means is sin, but accomplishing evil ends through evil means is worse.

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This is similar to the situation Romans 1 describes concerning same -sex attraction. Paul highlights this experience as a primary example of both the progression of and judgment for idolatry, the end of which is an unnatural function.

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In other words, same -sex attraction serves to illustrate the result of a descent into idolatry, in ways that opposite -sex attraction does not.

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Before addressing male homosexuality, Paul emphasizes lesbian experience as a way to shock his readers concerning the depths to which idolatrous creature worship can take people.

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The chronology of the text teaches that preceding the sinful action are sinful lusts and degrading passions.

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Preceding them is a sinful idolatrous experience. This is wholly different than heterosexual attraction, which humans are naturally designed to experience within the bounds of marriage.

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Heterosexual attraction is not, by definition, sinful or resulting from sin, whereas homosexual attraction is always sinful, according to Scripture.

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What is the conclusion then? According to Scripture, though any erotic attraction outside the covenant of marriage is sinful, same -sex attraction is not in the same category as opposite -sex attraction because it results from idolatry and its purpose is to achieve unnatural ends.

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This means that temptation to commit such acts reveal underlying sin.

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There is no scenario taught in Scripture in which any kind of homosexual yearning is justified.

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The answer for those who struggle with same -sex attraction, as Paul struggled with sin he was responsible for, but did not want in his mind, is to repent, confess it, resist it, flee it, pursue righteousness, ask

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God for deliverance, and pursue marriage with a godly person of the opposite sex.

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And so in the books we go right back to the impulse itself, the desire itself, and a desire is either aimed towards a moral goal or an immoral goal.

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So it's not the intensity of the desire or the chosenness of the desire or the duration of the desire that dictates whether it's sinful or not, it's the morality of it, the end of the desire.

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Therefore, same -sex attraction, same -sex desire is always sinful, chosen or unchosen.

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And that's the heart of the matter as Jesus unpacks in Matthew 5 for us in terms of the lustful intent or in order to lust for her.

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It's a heart issue. Jesus takes the ten commandments, he takes the commandment of do not commit adultery and he links it to the tenth commandment of covetousness, goes to the heart of the matter, and the covetousness is sinful, whether a reflexive impulse or a premeditated impulse.

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This is what we get to in the book, and this is, Kosti, absolutely the key in understanding the doctrine of original sin, but also understanding how we slay sin at its root and not just pulling out the head of the weed, if you like, but slaying it at its root.

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Then you can have real victory. And then you can apply that to all types of sin as well.